Day 44

First thing this morning we finished up the luggage door, minus the hinge we are still waiting on. The door comes flat and needs to be curved to match the side of the plane. The manual suggests using your leg, or a foam roller. We used a piece of 4-inch PVC pipe. Seemed to work great. The manual gives you the approximant measurements for where the bend is. So, we marked out with a line those measurements, lined it up on the PVC and slowly bent the door until it matched the curvature of the plane.

We also followed the manuals directions for bending the latch catch... This one did not make much sense. Once done, there is nowhere for it to hook to. All there is is the channel directly above the door, but this seems flimsy, and the "bend" of the latch wasn't going to work on it anyway. We ended up bending a piece of thicker aluminum to fit inside the channel and extend to where the latch would catch. We then drilled and riveted it in the same holes that were for the channel. Worked out perfectly and will be a much stronger hold for the door catch.

We then moved onto the big project for the day, fitting the canopy! So exciting getting that placed in the plane. It really starts to make it look like something! We got it set in place and were pleasantly surprised to find it fit pretty well already. We were worried we might have to do a bunch of trimming to get it to set right. There were a few places where the joggle line was not perfect, but we will be able to make adjustments. With the canopy sitting close to where we wanted, we used a pair of tie down straps to hold it tight in place and then one hole at a time match-drilled and placed cleco's all the way around. Once all of them were drilled we went around with a pen and marked the few places where the joggle line would need to be sanded to match the fuselage skin. The largest amount that would need to be sanded was only 1/8 of an inch, so all in all it was fitting very well.

We removed the cleco's and lifted the canopy up and out. Now we will sand the joggle line and start getting the canopy ready for paint first of next week!